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This week there were many people who were finally given a reason for hope after months of sadness and uncertainty. They saw their savior arise, destined to restore order to the broken realm.

I’m talking of course about Ted Cruz, champion of the Republican Party.

Go back to sleep Jon, Ted’s got this.

The demigod Donald Trump has run roughshod over the GOP in his pursuit of the throne. Like a true American patriot, he has ignored the antiquated rules of engagement and used tactics as unorthodox as his hair to rise through the ranks. What began as a subtle annoyance to the GOP nobility has since grown into a nigh unstoppable force which threatens to doom us all.

There have been many who have attempted to stand in opposition. At the start of the conflict, the GOP threw out hordes of their “finest” soldiers to vanquish the Donald. No fewer than 16 candidates were thought to be up to the task. Santorum, Fiorina, Jindal, Perry, even Jeb of clan Bush all fell at the feet of the beast. Some fought more valiantly than others, employing several interesting strategies along the way.

Ben the Surgeon appeared to use confusion as his tactic of choice. Not sure if he intended to confuse himself or the rest of us the whole time, but maybe that was his plan all along.

Ben, you stupid genius, you!

Marco the Little attempted to use wit to gain the support of the masses, repeatedly mocking Trump’s small fingers and making ill fated references to his watering gaffe of old lore. A strategy that might have been more successful had Marco possessed a sense of humor… or a personality… or a human, non-robotic brain.

Classic!

John of Kay-sick? Kay-sitch? or whatever his name is, has used stealth as his weapon. Often times over the past few months we’ve heard whispers of, “Wait, he’s still in this fight?” or “Holy shit, there is another guy in there.” Indeed there was another guy, behaving himself in the shadows, waiting for his opportunity to strike politely.

Kasich at a recent debate.

In the end there was only one man seemingly fit enough to pose a real threat to Trump. Inexplicably, that man was the bastard Ted Cruz (not a bastard in the literal sense, just in the sense that he’s a dick). Cruz was never meant to be the hero of this tale. He is generally loathed by most everyone he has ever been in contact with. Think of it this way, if Trump is the Antichrist, the hope was that Cruz could be the anti-Antichrist.

Cruz began his assault with a stirring victory in the battle of the Iowa caucases. He didn’t do much of shit after that, but with every almost victory he grew more and more confident. His task was made simpler when it was made clear that he didn’t even need to completely defeat Trump on his own. He only needed to weaken Trump enough to force him into a showdown in Cleveland, where the GOP were prepared to summon the fabled “Super-Delegates” to finish the job.

Despite the mounting opposition, Trump grew more and more brash, smugly navigating every obstacle set before him. Every time Trump defied the GOP it was a bigger embarrassment. What began as a mild annoyance over Trump had grown into a full fledged hatred (a hatred only surpassed by their hatred for Ted Cruz). Still, despite their disdain for Trump. not many dared to fully cross him. After all, this man could well be their future ruler. Although some were brave enough to cry out how shitty he is in one breath, they also felt compelled to begrudgingly pledge their support for him in the next.

Yes, Chris the Fat. Gaze upon your future in horror.

It was all up to Ted Cruz to turn things around. He had to put a stop to Trump’s onslaught. He was the GOP’s sad, shitty last hope. (This is when we all say “GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE, KASICH IS STILL IN?!!”) Alas, things did not go as planned. Cruz’s last stand at the battle of Indiana was a disaster.

First leading up to the battle, John Boehner, former Lord Commander of the House of Representatives, came out and publicly stabbed Cruz in the back.

FOR THE WATCH!!!

Then in the early stages of the battle, Carly Fiorina, Cruz’s chosen top lieutenant, fell at his side.

Like a true pro, Ted didn’t break stride.

Finally, Trump dealt the apparent deathblow, forcing Cruz and what few supporters he had left into apparent surrender.

NOOOO! I mean, YESSS! I mean, NOOOO!… I’m so conflicted.

But then at the zero hour, when all seemed to be lost, a fire sparked in Ted Cruz unlike anything we’d ever seen before. Throwing caution to the wind, he unleashed a powerful offensive on Trump. He was no longer holding back.

“utterly amoral,”

“narcissist,”

“serial philanderer”

These were the blows Cruz was now lodging toward Trump. He went on to add that Trump is “a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.”

This is the fury the people had been waiting for. This was the conflict we’d waited to witness. Though slain in battle, maybe Cruz could somehow rise up out of the ashes and lead the charge to defeat Trump after all. What a tale that would turn out to be. A world renowned piece of shit like Cruz, given a chance at redemption, unites the GOP to rise up and renounce Trump and all his evils once and for all. Songs would be sung of his bravery for generations to come!

Unfortunately, Ted Cruz is not the savior that was promised. He is still a just a piece of shit. After all the insults, and the tantrums, and the tirades against Trump, Cruz was asked this simple question.

“Will you support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee?”

After dodging the question a few times Cruz answered,

“You sound like a broken record, someone else have a question?”

Again he was pressed for an answer,

“I don’t understand why you won’t answer the question, Senator. If you think he’s a liar… If you say he’s a pathological liar, and you say that you can’t…”

There is nothing on earth that gives people balls more than a keyboard and a screen. The most mild mannered of folk can turn into viscous animals when they get on the internet. Whether it be a comment on a youtube video, a forum post, a reply to a blog, or review on yelp, an all out war of words is always just seconds from breaking out. I don’t know what it is that gives people the balls.

Oh wait… yes I do. They are hundreds of miles away and anonymous. That’s right.

I’ve always found internet toughness to be a fascinating subject. Watching trolls in action is sort of like watching kids in a schoolyard during recess. You can always tell the ones who are acting out, the ones who just want attention, the ones who are just doing it because they see others doing it, and of course the ones who need to be separated because they are genuinely fucking crazy!

LEAVE THIS KID ALONE!!!

Since this is such a fun topic, I decided to do a radio show about it. It will be tonight at 10 PM ET and it is going to be awesome. Here’s the link:

To start the discussion I will share with you some of the types of trolls you might encounter on the interwebs. I’ll give you my top three and then you can take it from there:

Dave’s Top Three Internet Troll Breeds

1. The Say Anything to Fuck With You Troll – This troll never really speaks in coherent sentences or words. They will just post total nonsense like “WEEEEEEEEEE!!!” or “My taint itches when it rains.” These are both comments I have received in the past.

2. The Racist/Homophobic at the Drop of a Hat Troll– This troll usually reverts to racism or homophobia the second you question him/her (usually him) on anything.

“I don’t think the Yankees are going to make the playoffs.” “Yeah you would think that you nigger. Probably like those faggot Mets.”“Yeah, I’m a Mets fan.”

3. The Post Hijacker Troll – This troll is the worst to me. They will take any chance they get to turn your post into a forum for whatever issue they want to air out at the time. For example, yesterday on facebook my friend posted this cool video of Rhonda Rousey doing judo. I made the comment that Ray Rice should try to mess with her. A rather innocent passing barb. Some asshole after me calls me ignorant, then proceeds to write a ten paragraph rant on men being victims of domestic violence.

I was at BBQ recently at a coworker’s house where the host did a pig roast. It was awesome. The skin was crispy, the meat was tender, everything was seasoned just right. As I sat down with my plate full of pig, I looked around at everyone at my table and they all looked so happy. That is, everyone except for one girl who looked absolutely disgusted. Amongst all the smiling delighted faces, her repugnant scowl stood out like a sore thumb. As I watched in slow motion I could see her begin to open her mouth. I could tell she was about to ruin everything, but I couldn’t get to her in time to stop it. It was like that scene in Bronx Tale when Calogero sees the dude who is about to whack Sonny at the party.

Yes, this is an appropriately dramatic comparison.

As we all sat enjoying our roast swine, this one party assassin opens her stupid face and asks us all, “How could you eat that?” She then gave us the standard uptight asshole “Pig is a filthy animal and here are all the reasons why” speech. At that exact moment, I wished I was a woman so it would be okay for me to punch her in the face. You could see everyone at the table just die a little inside. Its not necessarily that she was going to convince any of us that what we were doing was bad, it was just the fact that she felt like it was okay for her to pull this shit at a fucking BBQ. Especially a BBQ with a PIG ROAST AS THE MAIN ATTRACTION!!!

(Here’s some more exclamation points to drive home that last point – !!!!!!!)

In the right setting I don’t mind being educated on the merits of healthy eating. I don’t mind if someone who cares about me tells me why I should eat kale or why I shouldn’t eat Taco Bell. In general I know what to stay away from or what I should be eating in moderation. To a certain degree I think we all know what we should and shouldn’t be eating. That doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy ignoring the rules every once in a while. The last thing we all want when we choose to indulge in a pint of iced cream, or a combo meal at our favorite fast food joint, or a full plate of roast hog, is some jerk there pointing out all the reasons why we are going to regret our decision later. Okay, I get it. You read a book. Good for you! I don’t want to know what you saw on Dr. Oz. I don’t care at what age your cousin had a heart attack. That’s very nice that you feel the best you’ve ever felt. I don’t want to know any of that right now. All I care about in this moment is this pig. The guy in the Matrix had the right idea…

Former Indianapolis Colts head coach, Tony Dungy, was in the news this week for saying that he wouldn’t have drafted Michael Sam if it were up to him. Dungy basically said that Sam deserves the opportunity to play in the NFL, but he wouldn’t want to deal with “all of that”. Most people assumed “all of that” is meant to mean all of the extra media attention and distractions caused by Michael Sam being the first openly gay player in the NFL. Me, I’m not so sure.

At first glance, this seems to be a pretty harmless statement by Dungy, but there are a few things that make it pretty bad. First off, Dungy is African American. It seems pretty short sighted of him to make a statement like that considering all that he must have gone through as a player back in the day and as a black coach trying to get a job. So I guess Tony would have been one of those baseball GMs back in the day that would have passed on Jackie Robinson?

Alright Jackie, back to the Negro Leagues with you, I don’t want to cause a stir.

Even more hypocritical is the fact that a few years back Dungy was the biggest advocate for getting Michael Vick back into the NFL after he served his prison sentence for dog fighting. THAT WAS THE BIGGEST MEDIA CIRCUS IN THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE!!! So if someone tortures a bunch of animals Dungy is alright with championing their cause, but if they like dudes he suddenly wants to mind his business? Makes sense. Jesus never specifically spoke out on dogfighting in the bible. We all know how he feels about the gays.

Here’s Jesus stopping his disciples from going into a gay night club.

The problem with taking the moral high ground is that it sets you up for a big fall if you are not genuinely moral. The moral high ground is not a place that’s designed for you to look down on people from. Once you’ve put yourself in a position where you are telling people the right and wrong things to do, they are going to expect you to do the right thing too. “Do as I say, not as I do” has never been the most popular rhetoric in most circles.

Really, the simplest way to sum up Dungy’s comments is to day that they were dumb. Oh, what’s that? You agree with Dungy? Well you are dumb too. Hiding behind the veil of righteousness does not make it less dumb. Most times when you start off a statement with “I’m not saying” it means you are going to say exactly the thing you are claiming not to say.

“I’m not saying all religious zealots are dumb, but man they sure aren’t smart.”

Every Thursday at 10 PM, you turn on your TV and immerse yourself in the complete and utter tomfoolery that is Jersey Shore. (Yep. I said “tomfoolery”. I’m bringing it back!) You do it because somewhere deep inside of you, you have become accustomed to the idiocy. It may have started off with the Real World, or maybe Flavor of Love, or maybe even Fox and Friends, but now you’ve come to depend on the Shore for your fix.

You have a disease. I am not judging you.

Now that Jersey Shore is over, where are you going to turn for your weekly supply of stupid? Where will your brain cells now go to die a slow, methodical death? Before you go searching through MTV’s programming schedule, might I make a suggestion?

There is a show, which comes on at the same convenient 10 PM time slot. A show which, if given the chance, can be a fairly steady source of wtf moments and ridiculous antics. For example, here are some of the stupid things you can look forward to on tonight’s show:

– Dave and Alex figure out if their taste in music is gay.
– Can you catch the gay? Our in depth (not literally) research is revealed.
– Tonight’s guests include a black standup comic from Wisconsin (I didn’t even know they had black people) and a dude who wants people to pay him to chop his penis off.

That last part was totally serious.

So join me and my cast of merry fools tonight for another episode of NYComedyUnderground radio. It’s fun and it’s free.

Join me tonight at 10 PM ET, for another thrilling episode of NYComedyUnderground Radio. My guests tonight include comedians Brian Baron, and Brett Eidman. We will be celebrating stupidity on the Eve of the most ridiculous day of the year (aside from Valentine’s Day, of course.)